Travel Beauty Commandments

As a beauty editor, frequent flyer and now mother, I highly advocate you adopt the golden rule of travel beauty: keep it simple.

Preparation is king.

Travel isn’t the time to be wasting precious minutes on boring stuff like applying mascara, blow-drying hair, fake tanning, manicures and so on. So, do all you can before you leave to make your holidays a, ‘I’m up, let’s go!’ experience, rather than, ‘Just give me half an hour.’ Get eyelash extensions. Have a keratin smoothing treatment put through your hair. Get a spray tan. Get gel polish on your toes and get a nude manicure (no polish or clear) on your fingers so you won’t have chipped, skanky nails a week in. (Natural is the new black anyway.) Waste time on your appearance before you leave, not once you arrive.

Pack everything a week out.

Then, the day before, when you’re adding your daily essentials, (sunscreen, cleanser, foundation etc.) remove 30% of what you packed. You do not need four serums. Nor do you need your hair curler and hair straightener, plus three brushes. Travel provides a wonderful opportunity to do a beauty detox. I’m not asking you to look like a banshee for two weeks, but I am asking you to reconsider how much of your suitcase you are dedicating to stuff you don’t need and won’t use during two weeks in Peru.

Downsize.

Very few of your items should be full-size. Accrue (“politely remove”) travel miniatures from hotels, and buy small travel reusable bottles for things like shampoo, conditioner, sea salt spray and self tanner. Buy big/cheap/disposable items like body lotion, hairspray and sunscreen when you arrive to save space/weight.

Separate your stuff.

Makes everything easier, particularly if you have multiple destinations/flights. Take one small bag for makeup, preferably a see-through plastic one. Take one small pouch with medical stuff (paracetamol, melatonin, Betadine, antibiotics, Band-Aids etc). Take one tough, durable one for toiletries, because something will spill. (I use a men’s toiletries bag, they’re often bigger with deeper pockets.) Pop your hairbrush or large cans in shoes, wrap your hair tool in a jumper and you’re done.

Holiday face.

I don’t know where you’re off to, might be Tanzania, might be Toulouse, but what I do know is that when it comes to makeup there is a Real Life face and a Holiday Face. Holiday Face is far more lo-fi, and requires far fewer products than Real Life Face, but can be easily amped up with liner and lipstick for nighttime. My recommendations for your Holiday Face kit are:

1x eye shadow quad in neutrals, (with soft day shades & dark night shades)

1 x black kohl pencil

1 x flesh or white pencil for inner lower lash line

1 x mascara (if you chose not to get lash extensions)

1 x foundation AND/OR 1 x BB or CC cream

1 x concealer for under the eyes

1 x bronzer AND/OR 1 x blush

1 x fluffy blush brush

1 x double-ended eye brush (fluffy end and defining end)

1 x brow pencil with spoolie/brush

1 x bright lipstick

1 x neutral gloss

Carry on.

Don’t get carried away here, as it were. You just need to be able to freshen up, and look human after 13 hours in a flying cave. I take a few face wipes in a ziploc, moisturiser (my own Go-To Very Useful Face Cream of course), some BB cream for disembarkation, lip balm (Go-To again), crème blush to wake up the face, toothbrush/paste, and hand sanitizer, which I use like I’ll win a million dollars if I run out before reaching my destination.

And finally…

Go to IKEA and buy a stack of their Ziploc bags in varied sizes. They will save your patooti one million times over, preventing leaks, and compartmentalizing everything from socks to travel documents.

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